Computing systems today include a variety of different configurations. Many computing systems, for example, make use of virtual machines to some degree. When performing a data protection operation, data protection applications do not allow its proxies to be part of the protection.
To disable the proxies from being selected, annotations have been used because annotations can be edited and morphed. By changing the annotations, a virtual machine (e.g., a proxy) can become a different virtual machine. However, changing the annotation of a virtual machine, however, may have an adverse impact on the protection operations. Systems and methods are needed to ensure that data protection operations are performed correctly and reliably.